Now you’re familiar with our new site, I’d like to take this opportunity to formally introduce the new Campaign Monitor brand and briefly explain the story behind it. It’s been a massive team effort, and a project that I’ve worked on since joining the team last year… so hopefully I can give some insight into our process.

For years now, the old Campaign Monitor logo and website has done an amazing job at selling the software – but frankly, it was just a little bit too serious and corporate. Anyone who knows the Campaign Monitor team, or has had any interaction with support will know that we’re anything but a bunch of serious corporate guys. We’re a small and friendly team of passionate designers and developers making something we truly believe in – so it was about time our brand image reflected our personality!

That was our brief – to inject a bit of personality into our image… and we think the new logo does just that. It’s friendly and more welcoming than the previous version… whilst at the same time reminding you that we’re still the same ol’ company you can rely on.

The wordmark

Technically, the logo comes in two parts – the ‘wordmark’ and the icon – two elements that work equally well as a set, or as individuals, and at any size. As you can imagine, both elements have been continually refined, re-designed and obsessed over for almost a year before arriving at what you see today.

For the wordmark, I worked closely with the extremely talented Anthony Lane who hand crafted the type you see below. He managed to take influence from our original logo (Gotham), and was able to throw in some softer, rounded elements to make it much friendlier. The beauty of the final product is that it scales to almost any size, and still maintains it’s unique character.

The smaller circles (above) show how we maintained a consistent rate of curve, and the larger circles helped us keep the letter forms the exact same width. It’s this level of detail that makes sure that the word scales up and down perfectly.

The icon

The icon was designed by myself to be a device that we can use alongside the wordmark, but also in the places where the full word isn’t needed. You might already have seen it being used in our avatars, email footers and advertising (also here and here and here).

Much like the wordmark, the icon went through various revisions and re-designs before we found something that had exactly the right feel. There were a number of close contenders (below) – but nothing really stood out for us… we really liked the top left option, before realising that it totally looks like a fish.

What we ended up choosing and developing was an icon that could scale beautifully, was simple enough to have fun with, but also didn’t try and say too much. Some people see it as an envelope, others the letter ‘M’, a graph, crown, folded paper… or something else entirely.

There are a number of other elements that accompany the two parts of the logo; the origami effect seen in the footer, the colour pallet, our tone of voice. But overall, the brand – along with the new website – represents the friendly and human side of Campaign Monitor… and is something that I look forward to developing over time.

As always, I’d love to hear what you think!

Wayde Christie

Fantastic work.

Samantha

Once you see the fish, you can never un-see it!

Sean Hinton

The second I saw it in your New Design blog post I thought: envelope, M and a graph going up. It’s a superb blend of those three into one and probably loads of thing I’ve missed too.

Great job, well worth the time and effort.

Michael Barber

Really awesome brand work. Nice job.

JTech

Very nice conceptual branding with powerful imagery to drive the new website.

Lee

Nice rebrand. It’s definitely take the website and your brand to a whole new level!

Love it!

Felix

Nice Job

WebMatros

Very nice redesign you’ve done. I really dig it.

Also interesting to read a short blog post about your key thoughts behind it. Especially the note about the circles on the wordmark is inspiring.

Your icon rocks. Often the most simple solution is the one you arrive at last. Looking forward to see how it’ll scale down as a favicon though;-)

“we really liked the top left option, before realising that it totally looks like a fish.” LOL

Oliver / WebMatros

Armistead Booker

Bravo! Truly inspiring work as always, Buzz. So many great things that you can see in that great little mark, and so much personality. I feel a new #meme about the life of the CM icon coming on :-)

I did like the old logo better, but the overall look&feel of the new brand fits your target audience (us) better.

Bill Harkins

Love the new design guys.

Joseph

About how long did this whole process take?

Casey (Head of Product & D

Nice job, we admire your work over here at FreshBooks!

Tzaddi Degan (Founder @ Little

Not only an M but a sideways C too:) nice simple, effective branding.

Neil Dennis

Great work guys, the new identity looks very slick and is a nice evolution. Well done.

Chris

Didn’t see the fish until you said it!

Eoin

I love it. Much more friendly, playful. One more thing the logo looks like: cartoon rolling hills.

Steve

A simple effective idea however the icon and type thing is just getting a bit too bland for me. If you take away the fact that it’s a superb product / service with a solid brand history would this evolution stand up on it’s own? Is it brave enough?

Hayden

I really like both the icon and typography, nice work! Any plans to go one step further and release the full “campaign monitor” font?

Stuart L Crawford

Excellent work – always nice to see the inner workings!

Bertie

The new mark and logotype are fine. I just hope the “not so serious” precept behind your brand strategy doesn’t go too far. Lord knows some measure of seriousness is what elevates you and your product above the monkeys in your business.

Scot Copeland

For the mark I thought for sure you were going to say something like “the triangle on the right represents the growing number of open rates/engagement, the triangle on the left makes up the other side of the letter M, and the negative space missing from the top evokes an idea of an always open email message acheivable from using Campaign Monitor’s beautiful tools.”

At least, that’s what I saw.

Congratulations. I think it looks swell.

This blog provides general information and discussion about email marketing and related subjects. The content provided in this blog ("Content”), should not be construed as and is not intended to constitute financial, legal or tax advice. You should seek the advice of professionals prior to acting upon any information contained in the Content. All Content is provided strictly “as is” and we make no warranty or representation of any kind regarding the Content.

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